Visakhapatnam youth continue to fall prey to fake job rackets

Cashing in on the high rates of unemployment among the youth, numerous fraudsters and cyber miscreants have been duping individuals of fake jobs in the Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram and Srikakulam districts of Andhra Pradesh.

Recently, an increasing number of cases of fake jobs are being reported to Visakhapatnam police. Reportedly, M Radhakrishna Sarma caught the attention of many unemployed youth students in Visakhapatnam’s Bheemli. As reported by Times of India, Sarma lured youngsters of lucrative jobs at Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) and collected around Rs 80 lakh from them. He even claimed that some of his relatives held top positions at the organisation.

The trickery came to light when Sarma fled from his home in Kurnool and switched off his mobile phone, Kurnool said P Srinu, sub-inspector of Bheemli. The police are currently on the lookout for Sarma.

Intermediate and Polytechnic students, along with B.Tech and M.Tech graduates are falling prey to similar job frauds. Gopinath, Inspector of the cyber crime police station, Visakhapatnam, informed that the frauds are posting advertisements on online classifieds and duping the youth for a huge amount of money. He further informed that while 500 fraud job cases have been reported in Visakhapatnam city over the last three years, over 50% of them under investigation.

The cybercrime officials advised job aspirants to verify the authenticity of the concerned advertisement or the consultancy before taking any step further.